


The Sights and Sounds of the Roaring 20s

by feathershollyandgolly



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, M/M, they have more than one braincell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathershollyandgolly/pseuds/feathershollyandgolly
Summary: “I have to go,” I said suddenly. The words had slipped out of my mouth, despite my long silence earlier. “I think I’ll go with them.”In which Nick decides he'd rather follow Gatsby, and he does this many more times than he previously expected. Gatsby certainly turns out alright in the end.





	1. White

**Author's Note:**

> I read a textpost somewhere explaining this wonderful AU where Nick and Gatsby run away together, Jordan and Daisy are gay, and Tom is left behind. I wanted to write it. Here we are.
> 
> By the way, most of the dialogue is copied at the beginning! (These are the only direct quotes from the text) Everything else is my own work, though some of it is very close to the original because certain events or descriptions are necessary to the story :0 I hope you enjoy! I spend a long time writing this!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I had been pulled into the arms of cunning strangers who I thought to be friends, and they knew it."

It was the hottest day of summer. Skin simmering under the sun, sweat condensing under layers of trimmed suits and dresses. The wealthy were melting, and I melted with them. Searching constantly for a whisper of an answer among glittering dance halls and flying jazz numbers.

Drinking until we’re damned.

I was drinking right then, in fact. Settled on my front porch with a glass of whiskey. In this instance, it was I who had done something terribly, terribly wrong. I had become too enraptured in the dealings of empires to care about anything else. To notice the trembles of the floorboards or the ashtrays where cigarettes were discarded so thoroughly.

I had been pulled into the arms of cunning strangers who I thought to be friends, and they knew it.

I put my drink down, stood up, and stared out at the stillness of the lake. Rippling greens and blues reflected the clear sky above. Daisy needed me. Gatsby needed me. Though I was shaking, nervous, they needed me to act for them or everything would fall apart.

I had a train to catch, so I ran with arms open to catch it.

-

When I arrived at the Buchanan home with Gatsby, I could already feel sweat pouring down the back of my neck.

Jordan sat in the parlor, staring ahead at nothing in particular but huffing in amusement at the conversation. Her dark hair and callous eyes shone under the light streaming in from the open windows. Daisy sat next to her, lazily leaning back as the fans rushed a cool wind towards them.

“We can’t move,” they groaned in unison.

Jordan’s powdered fingers reached for mine, touching for a brief moment before pulling away. She sent me a cautious glance.

“And Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets. On an earlier outing Jordan had told me something that changed everything. I still hadn’t forgotten.

I glanced up to hear Tom’s voice float in from the hall, gruff and muttering into the telephone.

“Suppose that answers your question,” Gatsby hummed as he strode across the crimson carpet and watched the scene with curious eyes.

Daisy giggled sweetly at his fascination, powder rising as her voice echoed through the room. I smiled, bemused.

“The rumor is,” Jordan whispered to me, “that’s Tom’s girl on the telephone.”

We listened, curious and silent, as the voice from the hall grumbled and rose.

“Very well, then, I won’t sell you the car at all…I’m under no obligations to you at all…And as for your bothering me about it at lunch time I won’t stand for it at all!”

“Holding down the receiver,” Daisy’s lips thinned.

“No, he’s not,” I assured.

“It’s a bona fide deal. I happen to know about it.” There was a crash as the phone was thrust back into place.

The room was silent as footsteps thundered across the hall. The door swung open. Tom barreled into the room, his body filling the doorway.

“Mr. Gatsby!” He cried. He held out a hand, hiding his scorn beneath a merry smile. “I’m glad to see you, sir…Nick…”

The tension in the room was palpable. I stood behind the couch, behind Jordan and Daisy, watching with morbid curiosity as Gatsby shook Tom’s hand. Gatsby was glowing, despite the firmness in his eyes. He was blinded with love for Daisy. Both of them were.

“Make us a cold drink,” Daisy exclaimed, standing rapidly and breaking the tension.

Tom rushed out of the room at her command, the door closing behind him.

I felt the room sigh in relief, a breeze rushing in from the force of the closed door. Daisy looked around, and after ensuring he was gone, she pulled Gatsby towards her to kiss him on the lips.

“You know I love you,” she whispered.

I averted my eyes as she kissed him again.

“You forget there’s a lady present,” Jordan scoffed.

Daisy frowned, “You kiss Nick too.”

“What a low, vulgar girl!” Jordan’s voice was filled with a thickness unlike anything I had heard from her before. 

“I don’t care!” Daisy wailed.

She attempted clogging on the fireplace only to remember the sweltering heat. She sat down in a huff on the floor, leaning against the couch as Jordan sat above her. There was a hint of something behind Jordan’s eyes. Worry.

Just as Daisy sat, dejected, I too hoped to find something to distract from the heaviness lain across the room.

In came a nursemaid with a child in tow. Daisy perked up.

“Bles-sed, pre-cious, come to your own mother that loves you,” crooned Daisy gently. She held out her arms, and the shy girl ran into them. “The Bles-sed pre-cious! Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say How-de-do.”

Gatsby and I awkwardly took turns greeting the child. He kept jumping when she was near, as though surprised by her existence. He never expected Daisy and Tom’s relationship to be so concrete.

“I got dressed before luncheon,” the child said as she turned back to Daisy.

“That’s because your mother wanted to show you off.” Daisy hugged her child close. “You dream, you. You absolute little dream.”

“Yes. Aunt Jordan’s got on a white dress too,” the child observed.

“How do you like mother’s friends?” Daisy pointed the girl towards Gatsby, who nodded. “Do you think they’re pretty?”

“Where’s Daddy?” The child asked, ignoring Daisy’s question.

“She doesn’t look like her father,” Daisy interrupted. “She looks like me. She’s got my hair and the shape of the face.”

Daisy sat up on the couch while the nurse held out a hand to Daisy’s daughter.

“Come, on Pammy.”

Pammy clung to her mother, hesitant.

“Goodbye, sweetheart!” Daisy sent her off.

The child glanced back but followed diligently as the nurse pulled her away. It felt more like an appraisal than a mother talking about her daughter. I walked towards Gatsby, to at least mention it, but Tom bustled in just as they disappeared through the doorway. He brought four gin rickeys full of ice, ceremoniously handing one to each of us.

“They certainly look cool,” Gatsby pursed his lips and held his drink to the light. His voice was tight.

“I read somewhere that the sun’s getting hotter every year,” Tom announced. “It seems that pretty soon the earth’s going to fall into the sun—or wait a minute—it’s just the opposite—the sun’s getting colder every year.”

I swallowed my drink as quickly and greedily as I could as he spoke. Jordan and Daisy glanced to each other and then to me.

“Come outside,” Tom suggested. “I’d like you to have a look at the place.”

We began to walk away from the girls. The sinking in my stomach was elevated by the haze surrounding the world in a vice grip and pulling my thoughts away until I found I had nothing to say. I followed them to the veranda, a faint wind rushing across the Sound. It was almost still, the heat stagnating the water until only a small sail crawled away in the distance. Gatsby watched it for a moment, raising his hand and directing to the other side of the bay.

“I’m right across from you,” he said.

“So you are.”

I wanted to mention that I lived right next to Gatsby, but the thickness of the air was unbreakable and I remained silent. We studied the sweeping world of rose-beds and trimmed lawns, the dog day sending waves of heat across the bay. The cerulean ocean lay against a jay-blue sky, the white of a sail splitting the world in two.

“There’s sport for you,” mused Tom, nodding. “I’d like to be out there with him for about an hour.”

We went back inside for luncheon, drinking cool ale to settle the murmur of energy between us. The room was darkened to combat the heat, leaving our faces shining only in the midday light.

“What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,” pouted Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?”

“Don’t be morbid,” sighed Jordan. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

“But it’s so hot,” Daisy insisted, tears threatening the corners of her eyes, “and everything’s so confused. Let’s all go to town!”

Her voice rasped, the heat draining it away and vocal cords straining from the choking humidity.

“I’ve heard of making a garage out of a stable,” Tom said to a vague-eyed Gatsby, “but I’m the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage.”

“Who wants to go to town?” Daisy repeated.

Gatsby’s attention focused on her, eyes clearing.

“Ah, you look to cool!” she cried.

They were alone, staring into each other’s eyes as the world moved around them. I watched on, digging my fork into my meal. Daisy averted her gaze to the table, straining not to look again.

“You always look so cool,” she added, voice slurring against the thick air.

She admitted her love to Gatsby in front of Tom Buchanan and all he could do was watch. His mouth opened like a cod, eyes flicking between Gatsby and Daisy as though meeting them again for the first time.

“You resemble the advertisement of the man,” Daisy continued softly, “the man, with the arrow collar—”

“All right,” Tom interrupted, “I’m perfectly willing to go to town. Come on—we’re all going to town.”

He stood, black eyes gleaming as he glanced between Gatsby and Daisy again and again. We were frozen.

“Come on!” His forced cheerfulness crumbled.

“What’s the matter, anyhow? If we’re going to town let’s start.”

He lifted a shaking hand and downed another glass of ale.

We made our way outside. I watched Gatsby shuffle around and send me a sympathetic glance. There were times when he seemed less caught up in Daisy. Times when I knew he was not forcing me through his toils for without reason. I doubt he meant to be cruel. He was one of the more genuine people I had known.

“Are we just going to go?” Daisy protested. “Like this? Aren’t we going to let anyone smoke a cigarette first?”

Her voice trembled like an orchid, tears seeming to threaten her eyes once more.

“Everyone smoked all through lunch.”

“Oh, let’s have fun,” she pleaded. “It’s too hot to fuss.”

Tom did not reply.

“Have it your own way.” She turned to Jordan, who was tapping her fingers against her dress. “Come on, Jordan.”

Jordan followed wordlessly while Tom, Gatsby, and I stood upon the gravel driveway. Heat waved off of the pebbles, burning under our feet as we waited. I could already see the moon, a sliver of white shining from its pinpoint in the sky. Tom whirled around when Gatsby began to speak, words tumbling until he stopped and glanced back to him sheepishly. He had changed his mind, but Tom was still waiting.

“Have you got your stables here?” Gatsby asked stiffly.

“About a quarter of a mile down the road.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause.

“I don’t see the idea of going into town,” Tom hissed into the quiet. “Women get these notions in their heads—”

“Shall we take anything to drink?” Daisy called from upstairs, interrupting Tom’s scornful tone.

“I’ll get some whiskey,” Tom answered, running inside.

Gatsby and I were left alone, the tension finally leaving a bit. Gatsby turned to me, shoulders falling and expression softening into weariness.

“I can’t say anything in this house, old sport,” Gatsby sighed. I lay a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I nodded, “It’s full of…”

“Money,” Gatsby hummed. “It’s full of money." 

That must have been it. She was the chiming of bells, a song, gilded like the world she lived in. I would never come to understand it, and even Gatsby wouldn’t. But Daisy was born into it, and no matter what she’d always be a part of that golden city.

“Gatsby, do you love Daisy?” I asked quietly. The sun beat down against our backs as it slipped across the sky.

“What a silly question, of course I do,” Gatsby replied.

“What do you love about her?”

“She’s perfect, old sport. Golden hair, soft eyes, wonderful voice.”

“And her personality?” I rephrased.

There was a growing distance between us, parting our worlds like a knife. Gatsby was still floating away in his thoughts of Daisy, and all I wanted him to do was come back down. It was selfish of me, but I could tell that Gatsby was utterly lost.

“Old sport, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say,” Gatsby said delicately.

I went silent. I had gone too far. Normally I’d have accepted his answers, but something buried within me was trying to force its way towards the surface. I’m not one for emotional biases. Not usually.

At that moment, Tom strode from the house with a gleaming bottle wrapped in a towel. Daisy and Jordan arrived behind him, wearing small metallic hats and holding white capes on their arms.

“Shall we all go in my car?” Gatsby suggested. He pat the warmed leather seat. “I ought to have left it in the shade.”

“Is it standard-shift?” Tom asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, you can take my coupé and let me drive your car into town.”

Gatsby wrinkled his nose and protested, “I don’t think there’s much gas.”

“Plenty of gas!” Tom looked at the gauge. “And if it runs out, I can stop at the drug store. You can buy anything at a drug store nowadays.”

There was an undeniable pause as Daisy stared at Tom. Gatsby’s expression was crossed with something I couldn’t define, something I could barely fathom appearing. Disgust, perhaps. I never knew anything but kindness shining from his eyes until now.

“Come on, Daisy,” Tom said gruffly, snatching her hand and pulling her towards Gatsby’s car. “I’ll take you in this circus wagon.”

He swung the door open. Daisy tugged herself out of his grip.

“You take Nick and Jordan. We’ll follow you in the coupé.”

She stepped towards Gatsby, touching the back of his arm. Jordan sent me a look, briefly looking back to Daisy before following Tom into the car. Tom, Jordan, and I got into the front seat of the yellow car, Tom pushing at the gears hesitantly. We sped into the humidity, leaving Gatsby and Daisy in the dust.

“Did you see that?” Tom growled.

“See what?” I blinked obliviously.

Tom narrowed his eyes, glancing between Jordan and myself. He knew what we knew.

“You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?” he offered. “Perhaps I am, but I have a—an almost second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don’t believe that, but science——” Tom stopped. He was dragged away from his flustered theories and into the light. “I’ve made a small investigation of this fellow,” he tried again. “I could have gone deeper if I’d known——” 

“Do you mean you’ve been to a medium?” Jordan snorted.

“What?” Tom asked.

I couldn’t help but laugh as he stared at us quizzically.

“A medium?” Tom’s hands gripped the steering wheel.

“About Gatsby.” Jordan nodded.

“About Gatsby! No, I haven’t. I said I’d been making a small investigation of his past.” Tom glared ahead at the road into town, driving faster and faster as the conversation continued. Wind whipped past us. I observed Jordan and Tom’s interaction wordlessly.

“And you found he was an Oxford man."

“An Oxford man!” Tom let out a wry chuckle. “Like hell he is. He wears a pink suit.”

I opened my mouth in protest. Jordan answered before me.

“Nevertheless, he’s an Oxford man.”

“Oxford, New Mexico, or something like that.”

“Listen, Tom. If you’re such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?” Jordan admonished.

“Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were married—God knows where!”

We were beginning to sober from the ale, quieting and irritated from the heat of the day and the piling questions that surrounded us. Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes gleamed watchfully. I remembered what Gatsby had told me about gasoline.

“We’ve got enough to get us to town,” Tom decided.

“But there’s a garage right there,” Jordan protested. “I don’t want to get stalled in this baking heat.”

Tom impatiently hit the brakes and the car skid to a stop, dust billowing around us. Wilson’s sign appeared above us as the dust settled in the heat. The proprietor wandered from the shop and stared blankly at the car.

“Let’s have some gas!” Tom shouted. “What do you think we stopped for—to admire the view?”

“I’m sick,” Wilson replied. “I’ve been sick all day.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m all run down.” He didn’t move.

“Well, shall I help myself?” Tom grumbled. “You sounded well enough on the phone.”

Wilson brought himself forward, stumbling from his protected shade and towards the car. His face was a shade of green.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he wheezed, “but I need money pretty bad and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car.”

“How do you like this one?” asked Tom. “I bought it last week.”

I was tempted to lurch forward and reveal him, but I sat silent and watched as Tom maneuvered around Wilson’s prying while Wilson did the same.

“It’s a nice yellow one,” Wilson said, straining at the handle.

“Like to buy it?”

“Big chance,” Wilson chuckled a bit. “No, but I could make some money on the other.”

“What do you want money for all of the sudden?”

“I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go west.”

“Your wife does!” Tom furrowed his brow, aghast.

“She’s been talking about it for ten years.” Wilson rested against the pump, shielding his squinting eyes from the sun. “Now she’s going whether she wants to or not. I’m going to get her anyway.”

As he said this the coupé whizzed by, gleaming in the summer sun as dust kicked up around us. A hand waved towards us and disappeared into the distance.

“What do I owe you?” Tom demanded.

“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” Wilson muttered. “That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I been bothering you about the car.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Dollar twenty.”

The blistering heat seeped into my skin, pulling a horrible thought into my mind. Wilson suspected something, but he would never suspect the man standing right in front of him. Myrtle’s second life had shocked the man into sickness. I looked between the two and suddenly came to a revelation. They were in the same positions. The same intelligence and race, the same affliction. It sickened myself, to see how Wilson looked unbearably guilty as though he had a poor girl with child.

“I’ll let you have the car,” Tom said. “I’ll send it over tomorrow afternoon.”

I turned around swiftly glancing to the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. I stared beyond those watchful eyes. Beyond the garage, behind curtains, stood the silhouette of Myrtle Wilson, staring at the car from above. Her expression twisted as she stared down at the car, full of terror. Full of jealousy. I turned to see who she was staring at. It was not Tom. It was Jordan. She thought she was his wife. Myrtle, the poor woman, was scared out of her mind just like anyone else. I couldn’t blame her.

Tom sped away with us, eyes burning and foot pressing against the gas pedal as though it was his grip to reality. The security of his relationships was slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. He was running out of time. We advanced towards Astoria with Tom’s acceleration forcing us forwards, beyond spidering girders and towards that gentle blue coupé.

“Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,” sighed Jordan. “I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sort of funny fruit were going to fall into your hands.”

Tom was disgruntled, Jordan’s comments causing a disgusted look to cross his face. The word ‘sensuous’ affected him like no other. He seemed to be trying to protest when the coupé stopped and Daisy pulled us aside.

“Where are we going?” Daisy yelled to us.

“How about the movies?”

“It’s so hot,” she moaned. “You go. We’ll ride around and meet you after.” She shook her head, sobering. “We’ll meet you on some corner. I’ll be the man smoking two cigarettes.”

“We can’t argue about it here,” Tom huffed as the truck behind us began to wail. “You follow me to the south side of Central Park, in front of the Plaza.”

We moved steadily, Tom turning around or waiting for Gatsby and Daisy to pull up at stoplights. I think he was afraid they’d slip away behind another street and vanish forever. They didn’t.

A part of me was afraid too, although I wasn’t sure why at the time. I supposed at first that it was because I’d miss my cousin, but the longer I thought about it the more I realized it was probably because I’d miss Gatsby.

I’d miss the brilliant lights of the grand estate next door more than any green light on a pier, and certainly more than any sports star or my own cottage. That was not the first time I had thought it.

 


	2. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wallpaper loomed a glaring red, blooming like a rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be updating without a schedule (sorry, AP season) but soon I'll be finished the story (I'm many chapters ahead) and then I'll just upload the whole thing! Until then please be patient!

There was a scuffle trying to make our way into the parlor suite of the Plaza Hotel, but it was impossible to remember when sweat was sticking to my clothes and the heat settled around me. Gatsby wiped at his brow, glancing between Daisy and me before ultimately staring at the ground in front of him. As we neared the receptionist Daisy argued for bathing separately, and Jordan refuted the plan for its impracticality. I wasn’t sure if hiring one bathroom was worse than five, seeing the building intensity of the company around me. I protested the idea along with everyone else.

“How amusing,” the receptionist chuckled as we began to chaotically speak in unison.

We ended up not taking those baths at all.

The clock struck four when we got there, the windows left open only to allow heated wet air to flood in. The cavernous room was suffocating. Daisy glanced in the mirror and began to fix her hair.

“It’s a swell suite,” Jordan whispered.

We laughed.

“Open another window!” Daisy didn’t even bother turning around, instead commanding from her flustered spot.

“There aren’t anymore.”

“Well, we’d better telephone for an axe—“

“The thing to do is to forget about the heat,” Tom spat. “You make it ten times worse by crabbing about it.”

He pulled the bottle of whiskey out of the towel and placed it down. It probably wasn’t cold anymore, thanks to the pounding warmth flooding the room.

“Why not let her alone, old sport?” Gatsby asked wearily. “You’re the one that wanted to come to town.”

The quiet was deafening. From its nail slipped a telephone book that splayed across the floor.

“Excuse me.” Jordan murmured.

No one laughed.

“I’ll pick it up,” I finally said.

“I’ve got it, old sport,” Gatsby said gently. He scrutinized the telephone book’s fraying string, letting out a “Hum!” before throwing it onto a chair.

“That’s a great expression of yours, isn’t it?” Tom tapped his hand against the bottle.

“What is?”

“All this ‘old sport’ business. Where’d you pick that up?”

Gatsby suddenly looked nervous, his eyes darting from Daisy to me to the floor in a matter of seconds.

“Now see here, Tom.” Daisy whirled around. “If you’re going to make personal remarks I won’t stay here a minute. Call up and order some ice for the mint julep.”

Tom lifted the receiver and the heat of the room burst into a cacophony of what seemed to be Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from the lower floor.

“Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!” Jordan exclaimed glumly. She sat on the velvet trimmed couch with her arm draped over the side, staring at Daisy who was pacing across the room.

“Still — I was married in the middle of June,” Daisy recollected obliviously, “Louisville in June! Somebody fainted. Who was it fainted, Tom?”

“Biloxi,” Tom coughed.

“A man named Biloxi. ‘blocks’ Biloxi, and he made boxes — that’s a fact — and he was from Biloxi, Tennessee.”

“They carried him into my house,” Jordan said, sitting up as she remembered, “because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks until Daddy told him he had to get out. The day after he left Daddy died.” She paused, frowning, and added, “There wasn’t any connection.”

“I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis,” I noted.

“That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history before he left. He gave me an aluminum putter that I use today.”

The music had faded away, chanting now echoing from outside with interlaced cheering. Jazz reverberated and the festivities seemed to begin.

“We’re getting old,” bemoaned Daisy. “If we were young we’d rise and dance.”

“Remember Biloxi,” Jordan quickly interrupted, sending Daisy a look. “Where’d you know him, Tom?”

“Biloxi?” He furrowed his brow. “I didn’t know him. He was a friend of Daisy’s.”

“He was not,” she countered. “I’d never seen him before. He came down in the private car.”

“Well, he said he knew you. He said he was raised in Louisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last minute and asked if we had room for him.”

Jordan nodded. “He was probably bumming his way home. He told me he was president of your class at Yale.”

Tom looked to me, confused. I shrugged.

“First place, we didn’t have any president ——”

Gatsby has inched closer to me, feet beating against the ground nervously as Tom turned to him.

“By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you’re an Oxford man.”

“Not exactly.” Gatsby seemed as though he was trying to hide behind me now.

“Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford.”

“Yes — I went there.”

Tom paused, face growing redder in frustration, “You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven.”

There was another pause. A waiter walked in with ice and crushed mint, a “soft thank you” given and the door closing seemingly as soon as it had opened. I anticipated Gatsby’s response, looking to him expectantly.

“I told you I went there,” Gatsby protested.

“I heard you, but I’d like to know when.”

“It was in nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. That’s why I can’t really call myself an Oxford man.”

Tom searched out expressions for a hint of reluctance, but we all were staring at Gatsby, enraptured.

“It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the Armistice,” he explained. “We could go to any of the universities in England or France.”

I was tempted to kiss him with this rush of trust I felt from his sincerity. I sat down instead. It was a horrible thought that had come over me through the heat. Daisy stood and walked to the table, smiling faintly.

“Open the whiskey, Tom,” she commanded, “and I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself. . . . Look at the mint!”

“Wait a minute,” ordered Tom, “I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question.”

“Go on,” Gatsby said patiently.

“What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?”

Daisy and Gatsby were vulnerable now. In the open. Gatsby had a calm look washed over him. Satisfaction. I was impressed by his temperament.

“He isn’t causing a row,” Daisy protested. “You’re causing a row. Please have a little self-control.

“Self-control!” Tom echoed. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out. . . . Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and start marrying queers.”

I pushed down the rage boiling under my skin at his comments. Tom was a wreck, red-faced and jabbering on about nothing practical. The disgust that tainted his tone affected me anyway.

“That’s quite unfair,” whispered Jordan.

“I know I’m not very popular. I don’t give big parties. I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends — in the modern world.”

I was furious, but Jordan’s nonchalance and immediate retort made me want to laugh. Daisy let out a small giggle, to which Jordan smiled slightly at.

“I’ve got something to tell you, old sport ——” Gatsby started. The panic filling Daisy seemed to burst out all at once.

“Please don’t!” she cried. “Please let’s all go home. Why don’t we all go home?”

“That’s a good idea.” I stood. “Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink.”

“I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me.”

“Your wife doesn’t love you,” proclaimed Gatsby, a wild look on his eyes. “She’s never loved you. She loves me.”

“You must be crazy!”

Gatsby leaped up, a fire burning in his eyes that had usually hidden in the precipice. He had always been ambitious, but this overt, brazen movement had excited him. I stared at this predicament with widened eyes. There was an instance where I was afraid that they’d attack each other. That they’d kill each other, and I’d have to manage the fallout.

“She never loved you, do you hear?” he shouted. “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart, she never loved anyone except me!”

I caught sight of Jordan, who was motioning for me to leave. Gatsby and Tom took notice and insisted we stayed—their emotions had reached the surface and they had nothing to hide.

“Sit down, Daisy,” Tom attempted to command her, but the desperation in his voice won out. “What’s been going on? I want to hear all about it.”

“I told you what’s been going on,” said Gatsby. “Going on for five years — and you didn’t know.”

Tom twisted to Daisy.

“You’ve been seeing this fellow for five years?”

“No, we couldn’t meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn’t know. I used to laugh sometimes.”— his eyes held no laughter ——” to think that you didn’t know.”

“Oh — that’s all.” Tom leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the armrest. He paused, thoughtfully. He exploded. “You’re crazy! I can’t speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then — and I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that’s a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.”

“No,” Gatsby said.

“She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Tom assured, more to himself than anyone. “And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart, I love her all the time.”

“You’re revolting,” Daisy hissed. She looked to me, scorn filling her voice in a way I had never seen before: “Do you know why we left Chicago? I’m surprised that they didn’t treat you to the story of that little spree.”

I felt a burning shame, wanting to know more. Gatsby walked over to her. He sent me a sympathetic glance, but I felt no better.

“Daisy, that’s all over now,” he soothed. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Just tell him the truth — that you never loved him — and it’s all wiped out forever.”

Her bleary eyes looked to him. “Why — how could I love him — possibly?”

“You never loved him.”

She stopped, her eyes wide as they turned to Jordan and me pleadingly. It was as though the gravity of her actions had finally caught up to her, and now she was attempting to plead innocence or turn back time. It had been done. It was too late for reparations.

“I never loved him,” she choked out.

“Not at Kapiolani?”

“No.”

Muffled sounds floated from the ballroom below us, caught up in the stifling breeze.

“Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?” Tom asked, a sudden softness in his voice “Daisy?”

“Please don’t,” she snapped without the ferocity from before.

We watched her come apart, her trembling hands and reddened eyes revealing everything.

“There, Jay,” she whispered, lifting a shaking cigarette and trying to light it.

She missed twice before throwing her match and cigarette onto the rug and stomping them.

“Oh, you want too much!” she sobbed, “I love you now — isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I did love him once — but I loved you too.”

Gatsby blinked, listless.

“You loved me too?” he echoed.

“Even that’s a lie,” Tom sniped. “She didn’t know you were alive. Why — there are things between Daisy and me that you’ll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget.”

The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.  
“I want to speak to Daisy alone.” Gatsby’s voice shook, unsure. “She’s all excited now ——”

“Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,” she confessed softly. “It wouldn’t be true.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” Tom confirmed.

Daisy turned to the terrible man.

“As if it mattered to you,” she said.

“Of course it matters. I’m going to take better care of you from now on.”

“You don’t understand,” Gatsby marched towards Tom. “You’re not going to take care of her anymore.”

“I’m not?” Tom barked out a laugh. “Why’s that?”  
I felt a sickening pit in my stomach watching the scene. I did not want my cousin to remain with such a poisonous man, but Gatsby would never truly be happy. He was busy stretching his arm towards the green light, forgetting about what he loved and mistaking it for what he wanted. Though I remained quiet, it was not out of permissiveness. I truly did not know what to do.

If Gatsby won, he would be gone forever.

“Daisy’s leaving you.”

“Nonsense.”

“I am, though,” Daisy proclaimed. Her eyes darted around as she spoke.

“She’s not leaving me!” Tom towered over Gatsby. “Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger.”

“I won’t stand this!” Daisy sobbed. “Oh, please let’s get out.”

“Who are you, anyhow?” Tom continued. “You’re one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfsheim — that much I happen to know. I’ve made a little investigation into your affairs — and I’ll carry it further tomorrow.”

“You can suit yourself about that, old sport,” Gatsby placed his hands on his hips, nonchalant despite his trembling fingers.

“I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were.” Tom’s words filled the room. “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.”

“What about it?” asked Gatsby “I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn’t too proud to come in on it.”

“And you left him in the lurch, didn’t you? You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you.”

“He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport.”

“Don’t you call me ‘old sport’!” Tom hissed. “I’m not your old anything. Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfsheim scared him into shutting his mouth.”

An unfamiliar expression crossed Gatsby’s face once more. One that I knew well enough, but never from him.

“That drug-store business was just small change,” Tom kept going, “but you’ve got something on now that Walter’s afraid to tell me about.”

Daisy was gazing at the two, eyes flitting between them before settling on Jordan who was pretending to balance something invisible on her chin. I looked towards Gatsby. Though I hold contempt for all rumors about him, he suddenly looked as though he had, in fact, killed a man. It was fantastically terrible. It vanished as it had appeared.

“Daisy, please,” Gatsby whispered, the expression replaced with tenderness. He turned to me, though I was impossibly tied between not knowing what to think and simply accepting his escapades as one of his many truths. I tried to look as sympathetic as possible. It was not me he should be worried about. Daisy, however, was drawing into herself, staring at a particular spot on the carpet. That dream had faded, the golden slipping away until it was intangible. Gatsby chased it, reaching out only to hear the voice reply.

The voice was begging for freedom: “Please, Tom! I can’t stand this anymore.”

Whatever courage Daisy could have had before was gone. Her eyes were filled with fear.

“You two start on home, Daisy,” Tom said. “In Mr. Gatsby’s car.”

Daisy’s widened eyes looked towards him in alarm, but he stood his ground.

“Go on. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.”

“I have to go.” I said suddenly. The words had slipped out of my mouth, despite my long silence earlier. “I think I’ll go with them.”

“Nonsense. Stay, have some mint julep.” Tim insisted.

Gatsby and Daisy waited at the doorway for me, expressions raw. Daisy looked surprised. Gatsby looked relieved. I sent them a thin smile.

“No. I should be going,” I strode towards the two. “I just remembered that today’s my birthday.”

That was true, actually. I had turned thirty that day. It was a daunting number with the towering new decade to look forward to. It was terrifying, and with the ending summer, I suddenly felt more alone than I had ever been. I needed to go with them, with Gatsby. His plan had failed, and I had no idea what would happen with them so distraught on such a scorching day.

“Old sport, I—” Gatsby started as I walked past him towards the elevator.

I turned to him, a blank expression plastered over the emotions I had been turning over. 

“Happy birthday,” he settled on.

“Thank you, Gatsby.”

When we got to the car Daisy asked if she could drive. She begged us, tears still drying on her reddened cheeks. I suggested Gatsby drive, but they both weren't willing to listen to me. I believe that they were so enraptured with each other that they wouldn’t even notice had I not come along at all.

This wouldn’t have been a problem had it not been for the bleary-eyed, inexperienced Daisy trying to drive while sobbing and pressing her foot down as hard as possible. She seemed to think that the wind would whisk away the heaviness sitting in her heart. Her erratic steering twisted me into the car door, but I was caught up myself.

Thirty was a time of change. A time of thinning. Thinning numbers of single men I’d know. Thinning enthusiasm. Thinning hair. Yet watching Gatsby, pressed against him in the front seat, I was content. He had one arm reached across my shoulders, warm and comforting despite the ordeal.

We drove into the crisp twilight, towards a void that we would never be able to return from.

“Daisy, darling, we can still run off,” Gatsby pleaded. “We can bring Nick. We can bring Pammy. We can go wherever you’d like.”

Daisy refused to listen, accelerating and gripping the steering wheel instead.

“Daisy, please,” Gatsby continued.

A howl reverberated through the air. Against the darkened Valley of Ashes came a blurred figure in red, wailing and standing in a ray of light.

The eyes of T. J. Eckleburg watched like the eye of God himself. I was frozen.

“Beat me!” Screamed the woman in red, Myrtle, I realized.“Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!”

She was yelling at Wilson from the doorway, a blinking yellow simmering through the small frame. I watched in horror. She escaped that blinding light, turning towards the pitch darkness of the road and running towards the car.

“Daisy, watch out!” Gatsby and I both tried to grab for the wheel but Daisy pushed us away.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried out. There was a gleaming in her eyes, a fire that knew exactly who that woman in red was and what she had done to Tom. We were powerless to stop her, even as Gatsby grappled for the steering wheel.

Crimson splattered across the windshield.

The crooked body of Myrtle Wilson, screaming for salvation, and now silent. Was lain behind us in the gathering dust. I watched as she disappeared in the rear view mirror.

“Stop the car, Daisy,” I urged. “Please, we have to make sure she was okay.”

I looked behind us. It was haunting, seeing the road covered in a dark maroon.

Daisy did not reply. Something in her had broken. She continued on that winding road, refusing to listen to either of us. Gatsby was yelling something, it barely catching my ears and definitely missing Daisy’s.

“Emergency brake!” I yelled over the chaos.  
Gatsby lurched across and grabbed the emergency brake, pulling it as hard as he could. The car screeched to a halt. Daisy tumbled forwards. Her head fell in her arms and she began to sob.

“Allow me to drive the rest of the way,” Gatsby said, shakily, “please.”

Daisy didn’t even protest when Gatsby switched spots with her and began to ride home.

“I think that woman is dead,” I said. It was terrible for me to even mention it, but there was no way I could go without telling them for any longer.

“I think so too,” Gatsby said quietly.

“You’re both horrible,” Daisy said between us. “It’s a terrible shock.”

“I’m sorry,” Gatsby whispered.

He took a side road and made his way towards West Egg. The sharp turns whisked us away into the gloom, a place I hadn’t been but surely did not want to go.

At the end of this winding road was a small light indicating Gatsby’s garage. I felt feverish and cold all at once. I would be away from the company of the others after this, and I felt that would make everything worse.

We got out of the car with shaking legs and Daisy left wordlessly.

Gatsby continued to call after her the whole way.

“Daisy, Daisy you can stay here if you’d like,” Gatsby pleaded.

She was gone. It was as though she had never been there in the first place, leaving Gatsby and me to contemplate the empty room.

“What will we do?” I asked Gatsby. I was weary from the long day, my eyelids heavy and my body sore. I didn’t want to think about the blood on the windshield.

“I can say I did it, old sport,” Gatsby said softly. “You needn’t worry.”

“Gatsby, all we have to do is say it was an accident. It was.”

Gatsby shook his head. He was a great man, but at times his devotion scared me. He would have done anything for Daisy.

“Why did you tell her she was dead?” Gatsby asked.

“Why did you?”

We both seemed to have a quiet understanding. A moment of peace.

“Would you like me to walk you home?”

I blinked. I would have thought he wanted to check up on Daisy one more time.

“It’s best to get this car clean,” I replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, old sport.”

“Goodnight.”

I left him standing in that garage, with his yellow car full of red splotches and his saddening smiles. There was a deep longing within him that I still can barely comprehend. The depths to which he could love a woman who was unattainable. I could almost understand that, at least.


	3. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pool, the lake, the color of cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D aaa I never expected anyone would read my fanfiction !! I'm so happy for the reception,,,I worked so so so hard to write this.

I was restless that night; my dreams sickening and filled with the grotesque images of Myrtle, the poor woman in red, thrown across the car. The fog-horn wailed across the Sound, waking me from my nightmarish slumber. I pulled myself out of bed as the sun rose, faintly hearing the sound of a taxi pulling up Gatsby’s driveway.

I felt as though I needed to tell him something. To warn him, perhaps. Or to give myself peace. If I went any later, I had the anxious feeling that I’d be too late.

I crossed the lawn and saw the door sitting wide open. Gatsby was lying, face-down, on the table. Either sleeping or despaired. I approached him, watching as he looked up to me with misty eyes.

“Nothing happened,” he moaned. “I waited and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.”

His house had always been grand, but as we scoured the mansion for cigarettes it had suddenly become monstrous. We swung curtains aside as though they were circus pavilions, and walked meters along walls in the dark to find a single electric light switch—at some point, I had stumbled onto the great ghost of a piano, dust flying everywhere.

“Did you find anything, old sport?” Gatsby called after hearing the crashing of keys.

“I found some dust, if you want any,” I called back, sitting up from the piano and coughing.

Gatsby laughed, “Did you fall on the keys?”

“I’m writing a symphony,” I continued. “I was simply giving you a preview.”

“It sounds lovely.”

“Why, thank you.”

I found two stale cigarettes inside a humidor placed on an unfamiliar table. It seemed as though no matter where I went the house was never fully explored. We opened the French windows in the drawing room and sat smoking into the vanishing daylight.

“You ought to go away,” I suggested. “It’s pretty certain they’ll trace your car.”

“Go away now, old sport?”

“Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.”

I knew he wouldn’t take the deal, even if I had suggested it. He would never leave Daisy behind, and I would never force him to.

“I have to stay for her,” Gatsby said. “I’m sorry, old sport.”

Gatsby took a drag, thoughtfully. The smoke escaped his lips and wafted into the air.

“What keeps you tethered here, anyway?” he asked.

I looked up to him in surprise. The embers from our cigarettes fell into a darkening sky.

“I wanted to be a writer,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the full truth. I didn’t want to pressure Gatsby into staying, just as much as I didn’t want to pressure him into leaving.

“Is that what’s keeping you now?”

“I suppose not.” I stared down to my knees.

“What I mean to say is, old sport, if Daisy and I leave we will never return.” Gatsby leaned towards me. “I don’t want to leave you behind either.”

“I’m no one special.”

“That’s not true at all.” Gatsby suddenly looked indignant. “How could you say that about yourself?”

“Quite frankly,” I said, the thought dawning on me as I spoke. “All I’ve been doing this summer was helping you get to her.”

It seemed to strike him. He sat back, stunned and unsure of what to say.

“I love Daisy but that does not demean any love I have for you.”

I stared at him, suddenly being the wordless one. I was still furious. He had probably never seen me so angry, all of it directed at the mere idea of being used. His words, however, had frozen me like a dive into the bay. Questions poured around my head like an engulfing wave. Poor, sincere Gatsby looked towards me with tender eyes. There were times in which I thought him awful. I could not remain so angered after seeing the truth written across his expression.

“I want you to come with us,” he said. “Please.”  
I considered everything. I considered the love I had for him, quiet and blossoming under the surface. I considered his love for Daisy, the burning jealousy I had felt when I saw them together. I considered living alone.

“If you leave, I’ll go.”

We did not speak of it afterward.

That night Gatsby explained his origins. His name, “Jay Gatsby”, as well as his true name, James Gatz. Daisy was someone he had desired instantly, a “nice” girl of high stature whose blooming romance was sweet and fresh as lavender. He had lied to her, but not as he had lied to me. I believed he was like the Buchanans, and he had proved me wrong in the best sense. She believed he was a wealthy man, and he obliged to keep his secret in order to remain with her.

I briefly wondered if he had lied to remain with me. Flowers, filling my parlor was my first thought. Time for tea with the woman he loved. I had mistaken it for a ruse at the time. The flowers remained in my home, however. A grand spectacle for Daisy, perhaps. But as she left they became mine.

Gatsby burst this thought as he continued. Perhaps it had been the desire that drove him at first, but I knew as well as anyone that he loved her. It had been warped with time, as metal in rain, but it had once been pure. It had once been two souls standing in the rain and watching each other without the need for spectacle or glamour.

Then there was a war, and they split apart as Gatsby was forced through the ranks with the sound of artillery screaming around him. By the time he had returned they had shipped him off to Oxford, ripping him away for Daisy once more. Letter by letter, day by day, the joy they once had faded into obscurity.

Daisy was trapped in a desperate loop. Saxophones crying in the distance for a savior as shoes clamored against dust covered dancehalls. She moved like the seasons, drifting in and out of a bloom that would never take hold, and orchid falling delicately into the hands of other men until she was so ashamed that she wilted again.

Then she met Tom.

“I don’t think she ever loved him.” Gatsby turned from the gleaming sunrise in order to face me. “You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened her — that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying.”

He sat in a huff.

“Of course she might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first married — and loved me more even then, do you see?”

Something had dawned on him.

“In any case,” he said, “it was just personal.”

There must have been some sort of intensity to the affair. Something that I could never hope to replicate. Perhaps I did not want to. I did not want to be seen as an echo of Daisy. An echo of the past.  
Gatsby reached for the sinking sun as it disappeared over that whispering city. He seemed as though he was trying to capture something, but his blurred vision forced him out of it. It was gone as soon as it had arrived.

We finished breakfast at nine and walked onto the porch. The night had chilled the air, allowing the crisp hint of autumn to taint the humid skies. There were moments where I regretted staying, only torturing myself with the warmth of his gaze when I knew he’d be gone in an instant. Daisy was waiting for him, and despite agreeing to go with him myself, I knew that I would never measure up to her.

The gardener walked up to the foot of the steps. He was one of the last former servants of Gatsby.

“I’m going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.”

“Don’t do it today,” Gatsby replied. He turned to me. “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?”

I thought of offering to join him. I thought better. I looked at my watch instead.

“Twelve minutes to my train.”

I did not want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth my work, and much more importantly I didn’t dare leave Gatsby. The warning still sat heavy in my stomach.

“Well, old sport?”

“I’m not going to work,” I said decisively. “I’ll take the day off, whether they like it or not. I’ll call in sick.”

“What do you think of the pool?” Gatsby asked.

“I’m sure it would be alright,” I replied.

“Do you think we should use it, at least once?”  
I wasn’t surprised by his offer, though I had stopped myself from saying it only seconds ago. I suppose I didn’t want to seem desperate. Overt.

“I wouldn't mind.” I decided on.

When I arrived at the pool, wearing a borrowed swimsuit from Gatsby and holding a pile of towels, I found him already swimming. He had changed, his hair darkened by the water. The scent of chlorine permeated the air. It was a bit too cold to swim, but I could feel the heat rising as I stepped in.

“Do you suppose Daisy’ll call?” Gatsby asked. He was searching for reassurance. I granted it.

“Of course.” I lied.

“If she ever vanishes, I’ll at least have you.”

“They’re a rotten crowd,” I muttered. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

It was the only compliment I had ever given him, and I don’t regret it at all. I disapproved of him often. I didn’t want him to make frivolous mistakes in order to repeat the past. He had always dreamed of living a perfect life, but his dream had already been accomplished. I wish I could have had the words to tell him this at that moment.

The phone rang.

“It has to be Daisy,” Gatsby lept from the pool and rushed to the phone. I watched as water dripped down the planes of his back. He was talking anxiously to someone on the other end.

“What did she say?” I called.

Gatsby frowned. “It’s for you, old sport.”

I climbed out of the pool and over to the phone.

“Hullo, Nick,” a voice called from the other end.

“Jordan?”

The smooth husky voice at the other end was, in fact, Jordan. She wanted to invite me to Southampton apparently.

“I spoke to Daisy,” she said. “We have it all worked out.”

“We? What’s been worked out?”

“You weren’t so nice to me last night.” She ignored my comment.

“How could it have mattered then?”

She paused.

“However — I want to see you.”

“I want to see you, too.”

“Suppose I don’t go to Southampton and come into town this afternoon?”

“No — I don’t think this afternoon.”

“Very well.”

“It’s impossible this afternoon. I’m with Gatsby.”

“Bring him too.”

She hung up without another word. I hung up and turned to Gatsby, perplexed by her strange message.

“Jordan wants to speak with us this afternoon at Southampton.”

“We’ll meet her then,” Gatsby said.

“I believe she’s bringing Daisy. Perhaps she called for her.”

Gatsby sent me a smile. He was walking off towards the line of yellowing trees.

“I think I should get the mattress,” he called. He moved to the garage while I remained seated at the pool. A cool breeze streamed in through the trees. Clouds blocked out the sun, coating the sky in a distant graying blue. Gatsby came back, shouldering the mattress with some trouble.

“Do you need help?” I asked humorously.

Gatsby shook his head. For once, his eyes were shining. They were shining for myself, and myself alone. For that moment, I truly hoped that our meeting with Daisy and Jordan went well. That it would all end eventually and Tom and Myrtle would be a distant, awful memory.

A trembling cry rose up from the trees.

I whirled around to see a figure approaching, red eyes and weeping. Wilson. There was a gun in his hand, gleaming faintly under the sun. He had it pointed at us, switching between myself and Gatsby as though he was unsure of who was who. His body was shaking. My breath caught in my throat.

One of us was going to die.

“Wilson, wait,” I rasped, realization flooding me. It was about Myrtle. “Gatsby is innocent!”

“He did—he did and I saw it! He did it!” Wilson cried out as though he were afraid to admit what had happened.

Gatsby was bolt upright, arms raised in surrender. His eyes were widened. He was terrified.

“Wilson!” I shouted. Bleak images of red had burned into my eyelids. The way her broken body sat disfigured on the grimy road, caked in dust. Caked in blood.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

I dove towards Gatsby. Gatsby dove towards the pool. Wilson pointed the gun.

He fired.

The world was bathed in the scent of chlorine and iron. The sky was a milky white. Perhaps I was seeing heaven.

He fired again.

The world turned black.


	4. The Pool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "After that deafening roar, the world had gone silent. Still. The mattress floated across the pool as small ripples cascaded across its surface."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support :,D It means so much! I'm working on a very spicy chapter,,,lots of drama. It's coming soon after this one but wow is writing these chapters much more difficult than I expected. Thanks for hanging on.  
> -  
> Fun fact to lighten the mood, this file was called "The Great Gaytsby" as its working title.

After that deafening roar, the world had gone silent. Still. The mattress floated across the pool as small ripples cascaded across its surface.

My eyes shot open. 

There was a tight straining on my lungs as I floated there, stagnant. The cool aquamarine surrounded my body in a quiet calm. A space between life and death. A part of me wanted to stay there forever, alleviating the burning in my side and the restless panic in my chest. Red blurred past my vision, perhaps mine, perhaps someone else’s.

I resurfaced, and the world burst into movement.

“Nick!” a voice shouted, losing its posh accentuation.

I sat at the surface of the water, lying against it as though I was dead. The wound was pulling at every ounce of strength I had. I could hear a rush of water. 

“Old sport, please, say something,” Gatsby begged, pulling my half-conscious body from the pool and towards dry land.

I didn't know where Wilson was. I didn't know where anyone was. Above, the murky sky had begun to dim as the afternoon approached

“We had an appointment...with Jordan, about now,” I wheezed.

“Why can’t you care about yourself for once,” Gatsby held a towel to my wound. “Christ, we need a doctor.” 

Gatsby turned away for a moment and yelled something to his servants as they rushed towards him. One of them was fumbling with the phone. I clung to my side, breathing shallow and face cold. Deep exhaustion pushed at my eyelids.

“What happened to Wilson?” I slurred.

“He’s dead, my god, does it really matter?” his voice was shaking, though it could have been my hearing as it faded in and out with my vision.

“Are you alright?” I managed to ask.

“You’re bleeding, old sport,” Gatsby clung to my arm, as though anchoring my spirit to the world of the living. I felt feverish sitting in his arms and bleeding out.

“Are you alright?” I asked again.

“I’m fine. He missed.”

“I’m glad,” I sent him a smile, but it twisted into a grimace as pain surged through my side once more.

At least everything would be alright. I surmised that no matter what had happened to me, it was worth it to at least know that Gatsby would turn out fine. I clung to this hope as he clung to me, trying desperately to keep me awake.

I passed out.

* * *

When I awoke, I was staring at a glittering crystal chandelier.  It must have been Gatsby’s parlor, for I remembered the high arched ceilings from the time we spent there only hours ago. They had lain me down on a velvet couch. By the time I had regained consciousness, the doctor was gone. I felt my side. Despite my pain, I  was bandaged and I was alive.

“How do you feel?”  a soft voice. It must have been Gatsby.

“Fine,” I said, wincing a bit as I tried to sit up.

“You had us worried!” another voice. High pitched and floating. That must have been Daisy. There was something in me that wanted her to leave, but I decided against protesting.

“I thought you were dead,” this was Jordan, who spoke bluntly and humorous even among tragedy.

“You’ve said it plenty, we don’t need to hear it again!” Daisy huffed. “I’m glad he’s alive.”

“As am I.”

“I doubt this is what you imagined when you invited me to lunch,” I said, smiling weakly.

Daisy put a hand to her mouth at the bold humor. I wasn’t crass like Jordan, though. I  was tired and trying my best to remain happy.  

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” Jordan glanced at Daisy. Daisy giggled a bit, the grim expression she had lessening a little.

“How bad was it?” I asked.

“You were only grazed, thank god.” Gatsby sighed.

“He called us in a panic,” Daisy added.

“He thought you were dead too,” said Jordan. “It was quite dramatic.”

“I’m sorry for troubling you all,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Nonsense, old sport.” Gatsby’s lips thinned. “You had been shot. It's reasonable to  be worried .”

Outside the sun was beginning to set. The chandelier above lit with a shimmering glow, light bouncing off the tiled floors. I tried to sit up further, but the pain in my side forced me back down. The others looked at me in concern.

“What are we going to do?” I finally asked. 

“Tom is much better at putting an end to all this than you think,” Jordan surmised. “The best course of action is to  just  get rid of him." 

“You aren’t suggesting-” Daisy gasped, incredulous. She clung to Jordan’s arm.

“Of course not, Daisy. How foolish.” Jordan shook her head. The headpiece she wore glittered under the chandelier. “I was  merely  saying we must escape him.”

“Did you have anything in mind?” I asked.

“Well, we  were supposed  to have a meeting.” Jordan sent me a wink. “Daisy and I were planning, and  I think  we came up with something that will work.”

“We’re running away!” Daisy exclaimed. “We’re going to get out of here and never return.”

“All of  us?”

“Of course!” Daisy cried. “We’d never leave you behind, Nicky.”

I remembered what I told Gatsby earlier. I wanted to join him. I nodded along.

“I’ve already prepared to sell everything,” Gatsby said. “We can move out into the country.  Perhaps  we could move to Montreal.” 

“This is quite romantic, even for you Gatsby.” I raised my eyebrows. I knew that once he’d set his mind to do something, he would do it. He reached forward and held onto my hand, the one he held earlier. This time it was a reassurance. A bond between us.

“We can do whatever we want, old sport. I said it before and I’ll say it again.” His eyes glittered. “Anything you want.  Just  ask for it.”

I swallowed and nodded again. The room had become cooler thanks to the setting sun, but my heart pounded and my face felt heated. It was possibly from my injury.

“If you don’t mind packing some of my things…” I said slowly. “I’d love to go now.”

“But you  simply  must rest!” “  Absolutely  not.” Daisy and Jordan shouted simultaneously.

Gatsby shook his head as well.

“We should wait until tomorrow, old sport. I’ll get someone to gather your things, don't you worry,” Gatsby said gently.

“Oh! We should leave him to rest,” Daisy suggested.

“Right,” said Gatsby. He turned back to me. “You need sleep, old sport. Especially after that.”

I found it hard to disagree with that logic. I lay back down, my company watching carefully. For the first time, I could see a hint of genuine sympathy from people who I had once seen to be shallow or self-absorbed. Gatsby, of course, had always been sincere. Perhaps that was what made him so much more.

There was something they were not telling me, but the conversation had already propelled itself beyond what I could bear to listen to. I sat dazed and unaware, unable to focus. Instead, I watched as Gatsby and Daisy waved at me and walked off to the balcony to talk. I waved them off. They waved back.

They were golden, dusted with a pale sheen of something I would never understand. Gatsby had said something and Daisy giggled. I briefly wondered what he had said.

Jordan leaned towards me before she left to join them.

“I’ll tell you about the rest when you’re sorted,” Jordan whispered to me.

As the sun set over the horizon, a cool wind rushed through the opened window. The curtains billowed in the wind. A crisp, sobering fall was coming. I sat, pensive, while the world moved around me like the eye of a storm.  Klipspringer was fiddling with the piano, the sweet notes of Clair de la Lune drifting through the air.

There were times when the pain in my side spiked until tears formed in the corners of my eyes.  There wasn’t much to do besides take the recommended pain medication and sleep it off, unfortunately. I had seen men injured at war, and I had predicted wounds like this, yet the concreteness of it all was more shocking than I had expected. Like falling into a deep, crystalline pool.

I fell asleep, sinking into the feeling of newness once more.

During the next few days, I drifted in and out of consciousness wondering deliriously when my vegetative sentence would be over. At this point, my things were in bags sitting in the parlor and waiting.

Colder winds from the north were already blowing in as September whisked us from that humid August. The doctor told me not to move for another week, only further postponing things. In this time I had not heard a word about Tom.

I had a feeling Daisy was simply ignoring the subject.

“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Jordan explained. “I can see why.”

“She’s leaving her daughter behind, surely she should talk to Tom about divorce.

“You’ve never  been married, right?” Jordan said with a low voice. “Unfortunately, you wouldn’t understand. It’s quite difficult.”

We were sitting in the library, books piled high on mahogany shelves. I sipped at my coffee. The yellowed lamps shone against our skin.

“I wanted to talk to you, about our conversation earlier.” Jordan crossed her arms. “Do you remember? That lunch, when you met with me.”

I remembered our conversation from then clearly. It had changed everything. An impossible situation, perhaps made more bearable, or less. We were two sides of a coin.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Are you truly sure that Daisy and Gatsby will end up fine?” her voice filled with worry, something surprising compared to her usually chilled composure.

“Of course,” I said.

“Nick, you can tell me if you disagree. You won’t be insulting anyone.”

I shook my head, quiet and drawing in on myself. I wanted to tell her everything. It felt wrong. I stared at the ground, muttering and half hoping she wouldn’t hear what I had to say at all. Perhaps she had told me everything, but I had never told anyone anything.

“I’m afraid what  I think, what I hope, and what I want are all very different.” I finally said.

Jordan simply nodded.

“I’m worried about Daisy. He’s going to break her heart.” She sighed.

“And she won’t break Gatsby’s?”

“Gatsby this, Gatsby that.” Jordan rolled her eyes. She looked into mine, a panther striking. “You love him a lot, don’t you?”

I froze, unsure of how to respond. My mouth went dry as a million thoughts ran through my nervous mind. The yellow light was less warm now as it was sickly.

“Yes,” I whispered,  my breath caught in my throat. Jordan was safe, I tried to remind myself. It still felt impossible.

“What a horrible situation we’ve found ourselves in.” Jordan seemed unaffected. Even sympathetic. She smiled slightly at me. “We’ll  just  have to do our best.”

“Do you—do you suppose they should ever know?” I asked quietly.

The air in the room was thin now, the cold seeping in from the window. I tapped my feet against the floor anxiously.

“I think  they’re too idiotic to figure it out on their own.” Jordan finally said.

“But should we tell them?” I pressed.

“I’m surprised you’re  just  as thick-headed.” Her smile widened, though her eyes were dark and grim. “If we intervene we could throw everything away."

“We’d  just  split up, is all.”

“Nick, you fool.”

I stared at her quizzically. There were tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She was as terrified as I was. For that moment, we understood each other, despite my ignorance of what Jordan meant.

“If splitting up was all that would happen, I wouldn’t be so worried. But we wouldn’t split halfways.”  Jordan shook her head. “You watch everyone. Everything.  Surely  I don’t have to explain it.”

I glanced around the emptying house. Gatsby had begun to sell things, preparing for our move north. Great tapestries lost to collectors or dust or time. The books remained, nestled on shelves and untouched. The only reason why everything wasn’t gone was because of the fact that I had to stay.

I believe that was when I realized, though I had suspected it sooner.

“It’s Gatsby, isn’t it?” I asked quietly. My voice shook, steady and hopeful. “You think he…?”

She glanced away, distracted. She must have been jealous at the moment, gripping her dress in her hands and curling away. There was a careful way in which they all cared for each other. Delicate and dangerous in the heat of summer, and quiet in autumn. Jordan said nothing to my revelation.

That was answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh??? Finally?? It took me some few thousand words to get this far I'm like Jane Austen. They can't hold hands until chapter 29. (That's a joke...I really hope it's a joke)


	5. Automobiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Perhaps no invention affected American everyday life in the 20th century more than the automobile." -US history.org

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO I SAID AND UPDATE WAS COMING SOON A MONTH AGO IM SO SORRY  
> I had so much work to do and then while I was writing this I suddenly got big writer's block!  
> So I kept writing but none of it was really sticking well. This one took a lot of rewrites because I wanted to really make it stick. I was going to make a car chase, but ended up making a dramatic conversation that lasts around 2,000 words. I'm so sorry.

We piled in the taxicab with barely any room to breathe. As I observed from the window, I couldn’t help but think about our current situation. It was a great, romantic escape into the North from the callous hand of a man who had torn things apart. In some ways, it was as grand a deed as Gatsby was known for doing.

Despite this, he was on edge that day. His cool eyes looked across the bay, into the gathering morning fog. Daisy was silent and settling in her white, feathery dress next to him. Jordan and I sat across from them, and from where I sat I could tell that there had been an argument the night before. I watched Gatsby’s gentle yet worried gaze as the soft light of an overcast dawn illuminated his features. I looked away.

I suspected that we were worried about Tom. He still believed Daisy was with Jordan at her house, but it was a clear a lie as any. To avoid this, we were to leave early as to not alert Tom of our departure. He couldn’t see through the heavy fog that occurs in fall mornings at West Egg. We were lucky to have it.

“Thank god that dreadful heat is gone,” Jordan sighed. “I’ve been waiting for summer to end.”

“Autumn. That’s when things change,” Gatsby noted dryly.

“The leaves do turn a magnificent shade,” said Daisy. She stared at the open lake, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

A stiff quiet fell over us again.

The taxi rattled forward and the world began to move in a way that rushed around us faster than we could see. Jordan let out a sigh as the dense fog shifted around us and clung to the windows like an omen.

The second Daisy began to look back, I suspected that my time with them would be cut off by their own distraction. The mere idea was terrifying.

“Do you ever wonder about the birds?” Daisy asked nervously. “They’re so gentle. Where do they go?”

“Why, south of course,” I said. “It’s warmer.”

“But where? Do they have another home for the winter?” Daisy’s eyes misted over, holding a nostalgia I couldn’t understand.

“Anywhere,” murmured Jordan. “Anywhere but here.”

Gatsby was beginning to look impatient.

“Why have two homes when you can stay with one?” he asked, interrupting the daze of the mood.

“How would you know?” Daisy frowned. “You’ve gone from home to home your whole life.”

“I have one home and that is with you, Daisy,” Gatsby said gently.

“Do you?” She leaned towards him, lips thin.

Something told me this conversation wasn’t about the birds anymore.

“I wouldn’t lie.”

Daisy shook her head. Her gaze was burning to the brim and full of something. Anger. Sadness. Heartbreak. I briefly wondered what they had argued about that had caused such a row here, but I had no say.

Tom had mentioned how Gatsby used to be poor, and the fear that pooled into his eyes that day was something I never thought I’d see from him. It was the same fear in his eyes now. He was losing something.

“If you had one home you wouldn’t be bringing them,” Daisy pointed towards Jordan and me with a trembling hand. “You wouldn’t be waiting along for someone who only comes because you ask him to.”

“How low,” Jordan sneered. “Even for you. You invited me. I came.”

“I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” Daisy whispered. “I don’t.”

“You told me you did,” Gatsby protested. “You told me multiple times.”

“Well, I change my mind! How about that!” Daisy cried.

“What is going on with you?” I asked quietly.

She turned to me with scorn that ripped my words apart immediately. Out of all of the people sitting in that fateful taxi, it was I who she despised with the most passion, and I still had no idea why. As far as I could tell, she wanted me to come only a few days ago.

“You know,” she said. “You must.”

“Know what?”

We were passing over the bridge, the automobile flying past colors that diluted in the overcast gray of our daylight. Daisy was seething and certain and angrier at me than I had ever known her to be. Gatsby was silent.

“This is all too much,” she said under her breath. “You’re horribly cruel, Nick.”

“I don’t understand.” I protested. “Why do you want me gone?”

“Because now I understand,” Daisy said mistily. “I understand how that awful, awful man felt.”

She continued shaking her head, her cheeks red and face raw as tears threatened the corners of her eyes. She despised something. Perhaps it was me, perhaps it was herself, but I could tell from the way she spoke who she was talking about.

“Tom?”

Daisy nodded, hands shaking as she wiped her eyes. They had lost their burning hatred as it turned into a glaze of resignation and misty distance.

“He was so alone,” she murmured.

“He was terrible,” Jordan reminded.

“But he was alone. Now I am too. Two lonely, lonely souls,”

Jordan looked impatient, as though she wanted to voice something. Gatsby spoke instead,

“You want to leave.” Gatsby looked pale and sickly.

He sat back in his seat staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t a question, he knew that her heart was fleeing the second we sat down.

“You want to leave!” Daisy protested. “You always have! I’m just some shiny replacement for the past.”

“You can always repeat the past,” Gatsby assured. His voice was just as convicted as it was the last time he spoke of it.

“You can’t.”

Gatsby looked to me for reassurance. I remained silent. There was nothing I could do but watch their relationship rot away and fall to ruin. Daisy cried and cried like the shimmering drizzle that was beginning to coat the car with a silvery armor. As the droplets pelted the roof I could only think that at least Gatsby was waking up. I briefly wondered what Tom was doing.

Then I heard screaming of tires against the cool asphalt rang through the air.

I whirled around and stared out the window into the rain-coated world. A brilliant blue coupé was barreling down the highway towards us. I turned to warn Gatsby but he was too busy watching Daisy grin ruefully.

“He’s here for me,” she said, voice ragged. “He’s come to take me home.”

Daisy surged forward and rolled down the window. We were speeding down the highway, gusts blowing in and ruffling our hair and tempers. I squinted to see that gleaming coupé rush forward. Dread filled my spirits. I had held onto hope for so long that as it ripped at the seams all I could do was fall apart with it.

“Tom!” she cried.

Gatsby stared, frozen and horrified. Daisy had leaned across him and stuck her head out of the window, her golden hair turning dark under the storm. She would have jumped out the window at that moment, leaping towards freedom with the same abandon Gatsby had when he was staring at that green light.

We made a sharp turn towards a highway exit. The coupé followed. I had no idea how he managed to follow us here. He must have spied us leaving from across the lake while searching for Daisy, despite our strategies.

“Stop the car,” Daisy wailed, swinging back inside and knocking on the window between the driver and the cabin. “I need to get out!”

“Daisy, please.” Gatsby covered the window to the best of his ability, gently pulling Daisy away. “We’ll think of something, I promise.”

“It’s gone,” she moaned. “It’s all gone.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Gatsby begged. “All this time, I’ve built up everything for you.”

He watched her like she was a treasure. She watched him as though he was nothing. She didn’t love him anymore.

“I’m married.”

Gatsby reeled back in shock. Daisy had almost never spoken of her marriage. Not in an official way. It was as though the loosening threads of her relationship with Tom were beginning to weave themselves together again.

“He’s coming to take me home,” said Daisy with finality. “That will be that.”

The coupé was swerving towards us. Tires screamed against glittering road and rain pounded against the roof. I could only watch as Daisy reached for him in the rain. Tom was approaching.

That was when Jordan sat up.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Jordan said, indignant. Her storm-gray eyes were darting between us and landing on me.

There was a slow, building anger that had come from her since the moment we sat down. It was as though she was looking right through me, burning a hole through my skull to find the car outside. Tom was finally close enough for me to hear his words as they slid through the air toward us like daggers. The impending feeling of dread only worsened.

“You!” Tom shouted, pointing in our direction. “You’ve poisoned her mind with these...fantasies.” His face screwed into a scowl. “You know exactly who she is loyal to.”

“Loyalty’s got nothing to do with it,” Jordan shouted back, pushing me aside with shoulders squared and graceful. She leaned out the window. A panther in white, gleaming in the rain. “You’re not the paragon of loyalty, yourself.”

“She needs this.”

“She needs to be happy,” Jordan growled. “And she certainly doesn’t need you for that.”

“She was happy with me.”

“Why on earth would she be happy with you?” Jordan let out a bitter laugh. “No, she was only happy with you because I was there.”

Tom sputtered something indignantly. Daisy’s glance darted between them. Out of all of them, Gatsby was the most interesting. He was quiet and searching for something to say. Thoughtful as always. He sent me a look, sincere and asking for guidance. I sent him a reassuring nod.

Gatsby finally decided to speak.

“Why don’t we ask Daisy?” he piped up.

“Ask Daisy?” huffed Tom.

“It’s a good suggestion,” decided Jordan, ignoring him. She turned to Daisy. “Who are you happy with?”

Daisy blinked, wordless.

The car had gone silent in anticipation. Even I was straining to hear what she would say next. I could tell what Jordan wanted her to say, but we also both knew it wouldn't happen. Daisy, meanwhile, gripped at her white dress. She was glancing side to side, nauseated at the idea of making such a momentous decision.

“I’m not sure,” she whimpered. “Tom’s been so awful to me for so long.”

Tom burst into an uproar at that.

“I promised that I’d be better for you, Daisy,” he insisted frantically. “I meant it, really—if you just stopped living around these degenerates, if you just came home, everything would be alright.”

“You’ve slept with other women. You had an apartment. Tom, I’m a fool, but I know how awful you are.”

“It will be just you and me,” repeated Tom. “From now on.”

“How many of those lies have you told me?” Daisy cried back. “How many pearl necklaces have you given away?”

“You loved me.”

“Perhaps, once,” Daisy sniffed. “But that does not take away what you have done.”

Tom went silent.

She turned away from him. She had done it. She had severed the remaining, frail foundations of their relationship. Tom drove with his hands gripped on the wheel, face reddened and screwed into a scowl. I could feel him gazing at us through the corners of his eyes.

We were taking a back road through the country now, trees passing us by and rolling hills cropping up as we escaped the choking haze of the city. The rain was still washing everything away into a cool gray. Tom was soaked, water dripping down his temple like sweat but remaining with his roof down.

Daisy looked to me, and this was the worst moment of all. She didn’t hate me, but there was a storm of emotion behind her gaze.

“Poor Nicky, you didn’t want to be caught up in all of this did you?”

She had always been observant.

“I’m afraid not,” I replied, trying my best to remain casual. Of course, my shirt was soaked from the rain that came through the open window. I was cold and miserable, but my best was my best. Daisy smiled grimly, as though we were keeping a secret I didn’t know about.

“Oh, you’ve been blinded by it too,” Daisy sighed. “You still think Gatsby can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

What a horrible thought. I wanted the words to come to my lips but they refused. I knew it, deep in my soul, that what Daisy believed was wrong. I didn’t want his wealth. I didn’t want his security or his fanciful dance halls or his lavish parties or his crystal chandelier or his shirts imported from everywhere imaginable. I didn’t want, nor need, the duties that poor Daisy had to fulfill. I was almost shaking. The idea was ludicrous.

All I ever wanted was him.

“He’s a good man,” I said quietly.

Gatsby sat up a bit in surprise, but Daisy ignored me entirely. She sighed.

“You’re so quaint, it’s no wonder he’s swept you away.” She almost looked jealous. Seething and tired and sobbing all at once, as though the world was coming to an end. She wore a wicked smile, ironic and crude, directing it at me as though I was the cause of her troubles.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“But he has, hasn’t he?” She pointed an accusing finger at me. “You’ve never interfered, not once. You’re always at his side.”

“Daisy,” Jordan pleaded. She put a hand on Daisy’s knee, hoping to calm her. Daisy seemed to only grow more and more upset.

“Nicky, You’re breaking my heart just by being here.”

“You invited me,” I protested.

“Gatsby invited you. He always does.”

I couldn’t argue with her point.

Tom has some sickening expression on his face, awaiting the more obvious choice. If Daisy was upset with Gatsby and I, she would rather go with him, and he knew it. Gatsby was silent, defeated and nervously staring at his shoes. I could only hope that she would join us, but her trembling lip and burning eyes said otherwise. 

Jordan, however, was smiling.

“I want you to be happy with whatever you decide,” she said softly between the strained silence.

Her expression was gentle, gaze only fixed on Daisy. It felt too intimate for me to witness, yet I watched on breathless. Perhaps we could win.

“Would they?” Daisy muttered, pointing towards Gatsby and Tom. “You’re the only one who’s ever really thought that, and the only one who’s helped me all this time.”

“I’m your friend. Of course, I would,” Jordan replied, swallowing hard. “It is what I’m supposed to do, after all.”

The clouded look in her eyes had cleared. Daisy was waking up from that strange, diluted summer fantasy. She sighed: “I want to go with you.”

Tom shouted something, garbled and incoherent. He was ignored. 

“You don’t mean that,” protested Jordan. “You know I’m going with Nick and Gatsby and you despise both of them.”

“I _do_ mean it. I would go if at least one person was always by my side.”

Jordan stared at her, eyes wide. She was at a loss for words. Daisy held Jordan’s hand, reassuring.

“It’s what I want,” said Daisy.

Jordan could only agree. She smiled and turned to Gatsby, who nodded. He must have understood, finally, that this wasn’t for him. His selflessness astounded me. Perhaps it didn’t seem that way at first, but he loved Daisy more than he cared for his own ambition. I was overwhelmed with a sense of hope, knowing that I could remain and that my future had become more and more certain by the moment.

A voice roared from outside. 

“Well-Well consider this Daisy!” Tom shrieked. “Consider your family! Me! Pammy!”

I turned to the coupé screaming down the road alongside us. The feeling shrank back instantly at Tom’s expression, and I had a horrible premonition from the way his jaw squared and his eyes narrowed. He was infuriated.

He leapt up from his seat.

“Tom!” Daisy shouted. She had seen his mistake immediately.

“One day you’ll realize,” Tom snarled. “You’ll realize how much you needed me and you’ll understand why I did all of this.”

Tom didn’t know an inkling of what we already saw unfolding before us. The wheel spun wildly without his control, tires screeching against the shining asphalt. Daisy cried out in vain. The deep blue coupé swerved off of the road, flying through the rain-filled air and into the open countryside. It was both in an instant and in a million years that that tool became a machine became a monster that swallowed him whole as it vanished into the thicket.

It was like before. There was no blood, this time. No crooked body. Yet, as I pleaded with them for us to stop, to turn around and go back, they only looked at me with pitying eyes. We all knew what had happened, even if he were still alive somehow.

Tom was gone, and his power over us was gone with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT OCT 26th: Y'ALL IT'S BEEN FIVE MONTHS IM SO SORRY IVE BEEN BUSY WITH THE CHERIK BIG BANG AND OTHER FICS BUT I PROMISE THE NEXT CHAPTER IS OFFICIALLY IN PROGRESS!!! (and it's on the one device I constantly write on, so hopefully it will be completed at a more sufficient pace!
> 
> -
> 
> AAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT I APPRECIATE IT SO MUCH  
> -  
> Is Tom dead? You decide (JK I decided it already I guess you'll just have to find out what's true). Also some good Jordan/Daisy content because I support them with my whole heart. Nick is gay, we've been over this. I'm so sorry for the water metaphors, I'm trying to emulate Fitzgerald :( Usually my writing isn't this chaotic lol


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